Hopeful Romantic
by Luna Darkside
Summary: Sometimes Kaito really, really hates Shinichi's ridiculously skewed sense of romance. /ShinKai, oneshot, complete/


Eek. I just realized I've had this sitting around on my computer for nearly a week now. Forgot to upload. T_T''

Anyway, not much to say about this except Shinichi and Kaito have fun being dense idiots and fluff abounds as usual. Oh, and there's a slight AU, set approximately one year in the future and thus Shinichi and Kaito are high school seniors.

Also. Title shamelessly stolen from the awesome song by This Century, despite that it has nothing to do with the actual fic. This is what happens when I can't think of an appropriate title.

Well, now that that's over, enjoy & full A/N at the bottom! – Luna

**Hopeful Romantic**

"So when's your next heist?"

Kuroba Kaito looked up from his plate of curry at the question addressed to him. His best friend of roughly a year was watching him expectantly, wearing an inquisitive expression.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Kaito grinned, and his companion, the famous Kudou Shinichi, nodded cheerily as he scraped rice into a pile with the edge of his spoon.

"Well, I have to plan accordingly," he beamed, and Kaito raised an eyebrow.

"What do _you _have to plan? I'm the one who's got to get everything put together," he groused, returning his attention to his lunch. Shinichi only smiled.

The two of them had met about a year ago, after Kaito had attempted to slip into the crowd of spectators after a heist. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) he had accidentally bumped into Shinichi, who had been on his way back home.

And proceeded to instantly recognize Kaito as Kid.

At that point, Kaito had decided that his life was over and he should probably just set himself on fire and jump off Touto Tower.

But out of what Kaito expected was pure curiosity, Shinichi had taken this chance to get to know him, not turning him in, just sticking around and inserting himself into Kaito's life. He'd transferred to _Ekoda High_, for God's sake. He'd been that intent on stalking Kaito.

Now, Kaito could barely remember what his life had been like before the detective had calmly intruded. He saw his life in two parts: the pre-Shinichi, get-attacked-by-soccer-balls-by-Conan era and then the Shinichi era.

Personally, he preferred the Shinichi era. One, because there were (generally) fewer projectiles hurtling at him and two, because Shinichi was quite possibly the best thing that had ever happened to Kaito.

They'd been fast friends – _remarkably_ fast – and they'd developed a sort of reputation of always being together or at least knowing each other's whereabouts. Whenever someone wanted to know where Shinichi was, they tended to pop into class 3-B and ask his lookalike where the detective could be found.

…Of course, there were many times when that method didn't work, seeing as Kaito was usually _with _Shinichi and therefore not present to answer the question, in which case Nakamori Aoko would give an exasperated sigh and loudly announce that Kaito was off being in love, much to everyone's confusion.

Kaito facepalmed at the very thought. Why had he even confided in Aoko?

"Kaito? Are you okay?" wondered Shinichi quizzically, and Kaito jerked upright, having momentarily gotten tangled up in his thoughts.

He gave a short nod. "Sorry."

"Hmm," Shinichi hummed as he slowly lifted his spoon to his lips. "I guess I just won't ask."

"Might be better not to," Kaito smirked, and Shinichi heaved a breath. They were currently in a restaurant by the Mouri Detective Agency, since Shinichi had insisted on visiting her childhood friend and her newly-returned boyfriend, Hondou Eisuke. Kaito had agreed to tag along, though he didn't quite know Ran that well, having only met her a handful of times. He was aware that Shinichi kept constant correspondence with her, though.

He chose to ignore the swelling of jealousy that always seemed to arise when he remembered they'd dated briefly during the year before Shinichi and Kaito had met.

"Excuse me."

Shinichi and Kaito's comfortable silence was interrupted by a shivering voice. Kaito glanced up, dismissively at first, to see an incredibly cute girl standing by their table. She had fairly short, messily-styled chestnut brown hair and large blue-purple eyes glittering underneath thick eyelashes, and she was clad in the Ekoda High School seifuku, which made Kaito's eyebrows shoot up.

"U-Uh… Kuroba-senpai? Kudou-senpai?" she stammered in a whispery voice. Kaito's eyebrows dropped back into place. Oh. So she was a second year, maybe? That would explain why he had no idea who she was.

"Yes?" Shinichi asked kindly, giving her a gentle smile as he set down his spoon. "Is there something you need?"

"I just happened to be… uh… in the area…" She blushed and shuffled her arms awkwardly. "But, I… Kudou-senpai, can I talk to you in private?" she stuttered, watching Shinichi hopefully.

Wait… did that mean…? She was going to _confess_?

Kaito felt his stomach clench.

Startled by her request, Shinichi shot Kaito a puzzled _what should I do _look, which Kaito returned with a blank stare. Well… he really had no claim to Shinichi, anyway, and he didn't want to ruin someone else's chances. That was just cruel.

The girl was glancing from Shinichi to Kaito, face falling as she appeared to realize that she was probably not even going to be heard out. Her lips tightened, as did the corners of her eyes, and Kaito made a snap decision that he would _not _deprive this girl of her chance with Shinichi, however slim it may be. He might helplessly in love with him, yes, but he wasn't a completely bastard, dammit.

Shinichi had already opened his mouth, probably about to politely decline, when Kaito cut in. "Yes, of course he will," he answered, slanting a _just go _look at Shinichi, who was looking at him like he had finally lost it.

Which maybe he had, Kaito considered as Shinichi awkwardly rose and trailed after the girl to a more secluded corner of the restaurant. He didn't touch his curry, choosing instead to discreetly watch the two in the reflection of the window. Shinichi looked embarrassed as he stood defenselessly before the girl's vibrantly red blush.

"Ugh," Kaito said softly, dropping his gaze. Shinichi hadn't had a new girlfriend a good number of months, had he? And the girl was cute, of course, and precisely his type – Shinichi had always seemed to go for girls with cropped, messy hairstyles and bluish eyes, for reasons unknown to Kaito.

So maybe he might actually consider going out with her.

…Maybe Kaito shouldn't have told Shinichi to listen to her.

He dropped his head on the table just as Shinichi slid back into his seat across from Kaito. "Hey," the detective greeted lowly, giving Kaito's head a shove.

Kaito grumbled as he lifted his cheek off the table. "How'd it go?" he asked without wanting to know the answer.

Sending him a _what do you think _glare, Shinichi only exhaled loudly. "How do you _think_, Kaito?"

Hearing the sound of the bell over the door ringing, Kaito peered over his shoulder right in time to see the girl hurrying out of the restaurant, cheeks still scored with red and looking like she was suppressing tears, if the way she was clenching her jaw was any indication.

"Taking a wild guess," Kaito began as he turned back to face a vaguely apologetic Shinichi, "you didn't accept her confession?"

"Of course not," Shinichi rolled his eyes, shaking his head slightly as he pushed away his plate. Apparently he'd lost his appetite after rejecting a random girl.

After a long pause, Kaito ventured to timidly question, "How did you reject her?"

Shinichi stared at him like he'd asked why cats existed. "I told her I was dating someone else," he replied slowly, enunciating carefully as if speaking to a very slow child.

_What?! _"Are you serious? You shouldn't lie to her!" Kaito half yelled, brow wrinkling.

"Of course I'm serious. And I didn't lie," retorted Shinichi with a hint of incomprehension coloring his tone. "What are you talking about?"

_Wait, is he actually serious…?! What the hell? _Standing up so fast that his chair fell over, Kaito babbled something that may or may not have actually been coherent before running out of the restaurant, ignoring Shinichi's extremely concerned, "Kaito?"

_Who is Shinichi dating? He hasn't mentioned anyone in particular recently… and we've been together so often anyway that I can't imagine he's got spare time to meet up with any other girl… What does he mean that he's been dating someone?!_

"Who would know about this?" demanded Kaito as he halted at the crosswalk down the street from the restaurant, causing a businessman walking by to cast him a disturbed glance. He ignored him.

…_Ran! Ran would know! Don't they talk about everything? _With that desperate thought driving him, Kaito headed for the Mouri Detective Agency.

* * *

Mouri Ran opened her front door, completely bemused at the handsome but quite rumpled man standing in front of her, panting and clearly somewhat frantic.

"…Kuroba-kun?" she queried tentatively, and the man nodded.

"Mouri-chan," he huffed, bending over.

"Why are you here, Kuroba-kun? Weren't you and Shinichi supposed to be here around two? Isn't it only one?" She looked at him oddly, one eyebrow migrating up her forehead gradually.

"Uh, maybe. I don't know. I just heard something weird from Shinichi and I thought you might be able to help me out with it, since you two are so close?" Kaito sent her an imploring smile, still fighting to catch his breath, and Ran nodded, beckoning him to come in.

"Eisuke's not here yet," she called as she led the way in. "So we'll be in private." She sat down on the couch, motioning for Kaito to sit across from her. He complied.

"Did you run here?" she suddenly inquired, and Kaito replied with an affirmative, offering a bashful half smile.

Shaking her head motherishly, Ran rose again. "I'll make some tea, then. You seem pretty out of breath." She disappeared off to the kitchen in a swirl of dark brown hair and blue skirt, and Kaito could see why Shinichi had liked her. In the past, hopefully.

Ran returned a minute later with two cups of tea. Setting them down on the table, she laid back and gave Kaito a reassuring smile. "Go ahead, tell me what happened," she prompted gently.

"It's nice of you to listen to me. We don't know each other that well, after all," Kaito remarked as he sipped his tea.

Laughing slightly, Ran nodded. "Don't be silly. I've heard so much about you from Shinichi that I bet I know you better than you think."

Cup halfway to his mouth, Kaito frowned. "Really? What has he told you?"

"Oh, just that your favorite color is blue, that you're scared to death of fish, that your father died." She froze upon seeing the expression on Kaito's face, quickly reaching up to cover her mouth in horror. "I'm sorry, should I have not brought that up?" she whispered, looking as though she were silently berating herself.

"Uh, not that wasn't what I was…" Kaito faded out. "No, that's fine. I was just kind of confused because those are all such… pointless things to know about someone."

A ghost of a smile haunting her face, Ran only snickered. "You should hear the other stuff he tells me. Did you once eat three gallons of chocolate ice cream in one sitting?"

"My tonsils had just been removed," growled Kaito reflexively before realizing what she had just said. "Wait, why the hell would Shinichi tell _you _that?"

Ran giggled. "You didn't know? Almost everything he tells me is something about you or distantly related." She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and began scrolling through what Kaito guessed was one of her text conversation with Shinichi, pointedly reading out a couple. "'Did you know Kaito has never eaten starfruit before? It's ridiculous.' 'Kaito just pulled a muscle chasing after a cat. I honestly wonder about him sometimes.' 'Why is Kaito so bad at cooking?'"

Kaito bristled. It so was not his fault he'd never been asked to cook for anyone before Shinichi asked him to last White Day, damn him.

"'Indigo is the best color ever.'"

Kaito's eyebrows scrunched at the last comment. "Isn't his favorite color red? And how is that related to me?"

"Have you looked in a mirror before?" asked Ran, rolling her eyes playfully. Kaito lifted an eyebrow, wondering what she meant.

Sobering, Ran suddenly asked, "Hey, what was it that you wanted to talk about? I got carried away, sorry." Setting her phone down, she leaned forward, propping herself up on her hands and adopting a soothing expression.

Having kind of forgotten himself in the mad rush, Kaito stammered for a second before explaining, "Yes, that. Well… when we were at lunch, Shinichi was confessed to by a girl from our school. And…" Kaito swallowed. "He said that he turned her down by telling her he was dating someone."

He looked up to observe Ran's expression. To his surprise, it hadn't changed, though it was slowly turning a bit mystified. "Is that a problem?"

"Of course it is!" snapped Kaito, put out. "Who's he dating?! We've been together so often that I don't even know who it could be! How have they been meeting up?! And then obviously I have to know who it is or I swear – I swear…"

Losing steam, he blew out a breath hard. "I'm sorry, it's just…"

Ran was staring at him, now positively bewildered. "What are you talking about? Aren't…" She trailed off as a knowing look suddenly dawned on her pretty face. "Oh. Wait. I see. Shinichi's _seriously_ bad at this kind of thing, huh?" she sang, grinning widely. "He… wow. Just wow."

Perplexed by Ran's reaction, Kaito impatiently demanded, "So you know who's he's going out with? Who is –"

"Kaito, what the hell are you doing?"

Letting out a small eep, Kaito whipped around to see Shinichi standing in Ran's doorway, looking thoroughly nettled. "What happened back there?" His eyes shot over to Ran, who was laughing behind her hand. "What's going on?"

"I think you need to explain something to Kuroba-kun," Ran piped up, and both detective and magician frowned. She twittered, not so gently yanking Kaito to his feet and shoving him and Shinichi out of the room. "You two have a nice talk!" she trilled, and with that closing remark, she slammed the door shut rather merrily. Kaito heard her move off, humming under her breath.

Kaito turned to a scowling Shinichi. "Er…"

"C'mon, you troublemaking thief," Shinichi sighed, grabbing Kaito's wrist and dragging him down the stairs, past Ran's father's agency. Kaito allowed himself to be pulled along wordlessly, mind going at a mile a minute.

"If there was something you needed to ask Ran, you could've asked me first," groused Shinichi as he continued to drag Kaito out in front of the agency. He stopped there and whirled around to face Kaito. "Now. What's wrong?"

Opening his mouth then shutting it quickly, Kaito just dropped his gaze. "It's…" he hesitated, and Shinichi rolled his eyes and jerked Kaito's face up to force him to look him in the eyes.

"What. Is. Going. On?" Shinichi articulated sharply, cobalt eyes softening to their default azure at the hardened expression decorating Kaito's face. "Can't you ask me?"

"It's pretty stupid, to be honest…"

"If it's causing this much trouble, it can't be stupid," declared Shinichi. "Tell me."

Sighing powerlessly, Kaito lowly said, "I… I was just wondering who you're dating."

A long silence.

"You're… kidding me, aren't you?" Shinichi was disbelievingly, eyebrows climbing up under his bangs.

"No. I'm not. Who are you dating?" insisted Kaito earnestly.

Shinichi cracked a smile, seeming to laugh at him. "I'm dating _you_, of course."

It took Kaito's brain approximately twenty seconds to process this information. His eyes were wide and his jaw was grazing the sidewalk as he gasped, "_What_?"

"Mmhm. How long have we been going out? Two months?" Shinichi shrugged.

"But – what – you – I – when did you ask me out?!"

Smiling disconcertedly, Shinichi slowly answered, "That time we were at school. I asked you to go have lunch with me."

Kaito stared at him. "Shinichi, we've been eating lunch together since you transferred to Ekoda."

"Yes, but that was the first time I actually said, 'Hey, Kaito, want to go have lunch together?' instead of 'Let's go eat.'" Shinichi thought for a second before rather unhelpfully adding, "You said yes, if you can't remember."

"I'm sure I did, Shinichi," Kaito assured, face in his hands. Was this really happening? According to Shinichi's completely illogical logic, they had been dating for months? He'd already had the detective in his grasp and he hadn't even _known _it?

A thought suddenly struck him, and Kaito raised his face long enough to shout, "Wait, then why didn't we do anything… you know… physical?"

Blinking, Shinichi replied, "We did. I held your hand that one time."

"That one time?" Kaito yelped incredulously. "_What _one time?"

"We were walking past a sushi restaurant, and since they were displaying the fish near the front, I help your hand while we were walking past it."

"…What." Thinking back desperately, Kaito recalled that time they'd walked past a sushi restaurant where they _had _been making sashimi at the front counter, but he hadn't exactly been calm at that point, and Shinichi holding his hand had been probably the last thing on his mind.

"Did we never do anything else remotely, you know – or maybe you don't, actually – romantic?" continued Kaito tentatively.

Appearing to think it over, Shinichi slowly responded, "Once when you fell asleep while we were studying after a heist, I think I told you 'I love you.'" He paused. "Maybe. I mean, it was kind of late and I was about to fall asleep too, so I could be wrong."

Kaito was now officially close to smashing his head into the nearest brick wall. Obviously he'd _known_ Shinichi had just about no sense of romance, but this was going too far.

"…But then again, that's why I love you," Kaito muttered under his breath, and Shinichi leaned forward.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that. Did you say something?"

Looking up, Kaito grinned. "No, nothing. Just that my detective is the best in the world."

Shinichi smirked in return, offering Kaito his hand. The thief accepted, and the two started back up to Ran's place. "Damn straight I am. Although…" He stopped for a second, eliciting a glance from Kaito. "…I think my magician is pretty amazing, too." He slowly leaned in, pressing his lips against Kaito's softly, and Kaito instantly melted at the contact.

Well… maybe Shinichi didn't have such a bad sense of romance after all.

* * *

**Mmkay, well, I don't really know where I was going with this. I just discovered that I have yet _another _oneshot hanging out on my computer. I'll upload it in a few days, k? Although that one is kind of an epic fail.**

**Happy Don't Forget Day to any of my fellow Fullmetal Alchemist fans! If you haven't seen/read that series, go do it now so we can have PM conversations on who Ed should be shipped with.**

**Anyway, I'm going to go now. I've got a billion fic ideas that I should probably start to write. **

**Hope you enjoyed & drop me a review? :D - Luna**


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